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Saturday, August 05, 2006

Blink: The Nonsense of "Thinking Without Thinking"

As my regular readers know, no muse better inspires me to find Time For This than the large scale suspension of thought. For example, I have ranted about Creationism, alternative health scams, and bullshit products. Today’s plea for logic is yet another book review of an allegedly non-fiction bestseller (now the longest-running title on the NY Times list). Malcom Gladwell's "Blink" attacks reason itself, threatening to sap our collective intelligence for years to come. I confess I did pay for this book, but hopefully I can save some of you the frustration, time, and $26 that it cost me. Sorry if I’m too late.

In the pursuit of serendipity (which is arguably an oxymoron, but also my day job), I often supplement my reading list with books collected on shopping sprees through Kepler’s Bookstore. So stacked near the cash register, Gladwell’s book caught my eye on a day I was pre-disposed toward impulse purchases. Having heard many references to the book (e.g. Brad’s reading list), I grabbed it before a second Blink of the eye.

The book's premise is that experts can make instant decisions--synthesizing inputs and knowledge into intuitions that yield better results than long, painstaking, thoughtful analysis. So if you want to be an expert, learn to trust your instincts. Always go with gut feel.

Gladwell backs up his fortune cookie thesis with a smorgasbord of anecdotes that are anything but consistent. Sometimes the subject clearly, consciously understands the elements of the decision (e.g a military commander), and sometimes not (e.g. art dealers wary of fraud). Some happen literally in the blink of an eye (e.g. the tennis coach who can sense a bad serve coming), while others take 150 blinks (e.g. the marriage therapist who plays Let's Guess Who Will Get Divorced). Many are simply lucky guesses validated by time, like the ravings of any psychic who inevitably hits paydirt. And based on Blink, you'd think no one has ever guessed wrong.

One counterexample would be my hasty decision to buy this book. Had I blinked enough times to at least judge this book by its cover, I'd have evaluated the full title, "BLINK: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking." Of course, logic dictates that for any X, "The Power of X Without X" is nil. As usual, the Power of Thinking With Thinking (please excuse the redundancy) would have served me better.

Rather than enumerate every problem with this book (Who Has Time For This?), I can simply refer to Univ. of Chicago Professor Richard Posner's in-depth review in New Republic, which concludes:

...these literatures demonstrate the importance of unconscious cognition, but their findings are obscured rather than elucidated by Gladwell's parade of poorly understood yarns. He wants to tell stories rather than to analyze a phenomenon. He tells them well enough, if you can stand the style. (Blink is written like a book intended for people who do not read books.)

Do you really want your doctor making instant decisions based on first impressions? What about the structural engineer of your home, your child's school teacher, your pension fund manager or your nation's President? My own sickening gut feel is that the man whose finger is on The Button has read Blink (or at least looked at the pictures). Apparently, Stephen Colbert agrees, as he observed in his speech to the National Press Club Dinner about President Bush:

We're not so different, he and I...We're not some brainiacs on the Nerd Patrol. We're not members of the Factinista. We go straight from the gut, right sir? That's where the truth lies--right here in the gut. Did you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. Now I know some of you are going to say "I did look it up and that's not true." That's because you looked it up in a book. Next time look it up in your gut.

"Why do you call this dog Mohammed?" asked the bearded man."Because that's his name.""You should not have called this dog Mohammed.""I didn't call the dog Mohammed," Charlie said. "His name was Mohammed when I got him. It was on his collar.""It is blasphemy to call a dog Mohammed.""I tried calling him something else but he doesn't listen. Watch. Steve, bite this man's leg? See, nothing. Spot, bite off this man's leg. Nothing. I might as well be speaking Farsi. You see where I'm going with this?""Well, I have named my dog Jesus. How do you feel about that?""Well, then I'm sorry, I didn't realize you'd lost your dog.""I have not lost my dog.""Really? I saw these flyers all over town with 'Have You Found Jesus?' on them. It must be another dog named Jesus. Was there a reward? A reward helps, you know." Charlie noted that more and more lately, he had a hard time resisting the urge to fuck with people, especially when they insisted on behaving like idiots.

20 comments:

As I wind my way through Atlas Shrugged again (on tape) during my runs, I can't help but wonder if Gladwell has never read it (how's that for sentence construction.) If he had, he'd remember the section titled "A is A" and he would have never subtitled a book "The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" (or - to make it simpler - "The Power of A Without A." As you point out, if you actually consider the subtitle, the book should vanish in a poof of logical deconstruction. Maybe we should introduce Gladwell to Bertram Scudder. Beware of the looters.

I find that 90% of business books are terrible and rely heavily on ad hoc examples rather than attempting to build theories. If you really want to rot your brain try reading business books on viral marketing, PR or blogging.

Andy,Genesis combines myths clearly borrowed from Phoenicians, Cananites, Zoroastrianists, Egyptians, Sumerians and other contemporary tribes. The remainder is a "dramatized version" of history that grew into a "cult classic". Much of it seems barbarian today, but at the time it was downright radical, suggesting women's rights, slaves' rights, and limits on the monarchy.

The most frustrating part to me was Gladwell's assertion that there was no link between doctor lawsuits and skill but there was a link between doctor lawsuits and bedside manner, therefore, you should "listen to your intuition" when you are evaluating doctors. As if I don't care about the doctor's skill as long as s/he is friendly.

And, that whole "triage for heart attack patients in Chicago" anecdote was a counterexample to his theory, not supportive at all.

Ben's last sentence hits it. The book is fun and interesting and does not really try (and sure does not succeed) in proving that thinking without thinking always makes sense. The subtitle is just marketing. The content is just bite sized interesting stuff you probably don't get to read about elsewhere - like the New Yorker itself. Doesn't need to be consistent to be interesting. I enjoyed it (obviously) without seeing a need to buy into the thesis in the subtitle.John Nowaczyk.

David,I just bought a book at the airport titled "Think - Why Crucial Decisions Can't Be Made in the Blink of an Eye". From the flap: "Outraged by the downward spiral of American intellect and culture, Michael R. LeGault offers the flip side of Malcolm Gladwell's bestselling phenomenon, Blink..."I have not started the book yet, but the concept appeals to me.

This book comes the category of business books in which the entire premise is covered in the first chapter with the rest filler. Gladwell's filler is better than most but not worth my time. Read the first chapter in the store and save a few bucks!

Gladwell is an excellent journalist but no scientist. He mixes different topics. There is an interesting Henry Mintzberg article about three decision styles (doing, seeing and thinking first).

Apart from the stereotyping which is not really relevant, the book is mostly about expert decision-making (seeing first). Experts learn to distinguish patterns, so they *see* a situation and their guts tell them the correct decision because in their brain they have identified a matching pattern. This is the way firefighters, nurses, doctors etc. operate.

Read Gary Klein's Sources of Power or The Power of Intuition: How to Use Your Gut Feelings to Make Better Decisions at Work.

Gosh, I wish I had read this blog long ago. I bought this POS and Malcolm's other garbage and have been upset ever since. What really annoys me is that everyone I know likes Blink and Tipping Point, even those I work with. The kids in South Park went to LA and tried to get their money back from Mel Gibson after watching "Passion." Maybe I can do the same with Malcolm.

You may be interested in a recent article from HBS Working Knowledge that stresses the advisability, particularly in complex and emotionally charged situations, of resisting "System 1" thinking and employing "System 2" thought. System 1 thinking appears to coincide with Blink style decision making.

Blink is one of those books which is structured like it is trying to proof a point, gets you to buy, and then rots on your shelf after the first 2 chapters (if you're looking for a point). It so cleverly targets the "Casual Intellectuals" market. Fun read for the stories though, good book for non-commital, 5-min reads because you can stop anywhere.

Blink is one of those books which is structured like it is trying to proof a point, gets you to buy, and then rots on your shelf after the first 2 chapters (if you're looking for a point). It so cleverly targets the "Casual Intellectuals" market. Fun read for the stories though, good book for non-commital, 5-min reads because you can stop anywhere.

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